Guest Blogger: Iyana Jenna

Lucy, I’d like to say thank you so much for having me on your blog. I would like to share with your readers my new m/m short story, A Midnight Caller, published by Bitten Press.

I’m a writer. Right?

I just read a blog post about how difficult it is for someone to show others that he is a proper writer. The blog writer said, rather sarcastically, that if he writes 1,000 words a day, then he is a real writer. It’s not enough that one is published because right now everyone can publish his own work.

My question is, why do you need to be called a proper writer? Aren’t you one already? You write something—doesn’t that make you a writer? Whatever you write, whoever reads it, wherever and however you share it, whether it’s for your own satisfaction or other people’s joy. And who says authors should publish books? What about those working for a magazine or newspaper? Script writers? Copy writers? They have the title ‘writer’ attached to their job already. They might not need to write 1,000 a day to show that they are writers.

Just do what you love to do. Write, and enjoy the ride. No matter whether others call you a writer or not.

A Midnight Caller

Summary:

Actor Ashley Ferguson had received several mysterious calls for the past couple of nights. The caller said he was also an actor. Ashley tried to find out who he was and guessed it was Colt Harper, a young actor whose show was also playing on TV. Ashley thought of reporting the calls to the cops several times but he kept delaying doing it.

One night after Ashley was finished shooting someone grabbed him in the parking lot. The man said he was the midnight caller. Ashley was afraid that his earlier guess was wrong and his decision not to report to the police would end up really bad for him.

Excerpt:

“Hey, I’m sorry, man…”

“And you said you’d call the next day but you didn’t.”

“Oh, were you expecting that? Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Shut up. I’m just so stupid. Get out of my life, okay?”

“Hey, wait. Please, I didn’t mean that. I’m so grateful you want to talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, thanks for giving me the chance to talk to you. By the way, Ashley…”

“Listen. You sound like a good kid. Why don’t you tell me your name and end all this weirdness?”

Iyana lives in Jakarta, a city famous for its traffic jams, a lot of cars and motorcycles, and people selling stuff on the roads. You can spend two hours on the road going to a place you can reach in half an hour in a normal situation. Thanks to the traffic jams, though, Iyana can come up with a lot of stories, mostly shorties, as she prefers to spend the time during her trips writing into her cell phone rather than sleeping.

Another thing Iyana loves is kitties. Right now she has five of them. Their names are Larva, Nyil, Cil, Mermood, and Horus. When she doesn’t write, she plays with them, or they would play with her when she writes.